Review: Shatter Me by Taherah Mafi

Shatter Me by Taherah Mafi

Dani’s Rating: 5 stars
Overall Rating: 5 stars
 
Format: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date : November 15, 2011
Pages: 338

Goodreads Synopsis:
 Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color. 

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior. 

Dani's Review:

After reading Shatter Me, I had a strange feeling. I wasn’t sad because I finished reading a good book. I wasn’t filled with euphoria because of the incredible ending. I felt...at peace. Throughout almost the entire book, Juliette Ferrars wondered if she is a monster. Every time she touched a person, the person felt incredible pain, so much blinding anguish that it could lead to death. She had been shunned all her life, even by her own mother. At school, the other children threw rocks at her and the teachers whispered about her when they thought she wasn’t listening. I traveled with Juliette on her journey to find who she really is. A weapon to be used by whoever picks her up or a warrior who decides her own actions. I felt mollified because finally, at the end of Shatter Me, Juliette realized that she can control her actions. She can control who she harms or doesn’t harm. She truly found herself.

Shatter Me made me cry. I didn’t cry when I watched the movie Les Miserables, so what does that tell you about this book? After a horrible accident involving Juliette’s abilities, The Reestablishment locked her in an asylum for the accusation of murder. This book takes place in a dystopia world where all of our worst fears about humans’ impact on Earth came true. The atmosphere has broken from the overuse of chemicals, causing erratic weather that can shift from snowflakes to bleak, fading sunlight.  Abuse of ecosystems caused plants and animals to disappear.  Human society is a mess. The Reestablishment took over, promising to “fix” all the problems but doing so in a totalitarian way. They decided the only way to heal the world was to erase everything and start from scratch. They planned to destroy the English language and create one universal language. 

After living in the asylum for almost a year, and two years after being ostracized from society, Juliette’s world changed with the introduction of the characters Adam and Warner.

Adam Kent first appears as Juliette’s new cellmate in the asylum. In the asylum, the opposite genders do not interact. Juliette wonders if this means she will die soon, and the authorities decided to move in the latest “crazy” person early. There’s so much I could say about Adam, but I would spoil everything if I did!  And yes, he is Juliette’s love interest.

 
Warner is the leader of The Reestablishment. He is absolutely insane because of childhood abuse. He is broken inside and angry at the world for allowing his childhood to occur. So how does he control his hatred? He doesn’t. He hates the world so much he wants to destroy it and start anew. He is an extremely creepy character since he has a weird fascination with Juliette, poor girl. She is brought to The Reestablishment headquarters on Warner’s orders. 

 
I loved Adam without question, but I had mixed feelings about Warner. I hated him in the beginning, but when Juliette discovered more about Warner’s childhood, I gave him my sympathy. All I know is that Warner is more than just an antagonist.

 
Taheral Mafi’s writing is amazing. She used a lot of repetition, broken sentences, and crossing out of words in the beginning when Juliette was in the asylum to portray Juliette’s mental state. To my surprise, this unusual wordplay flowed on the pages and didn’t seem out of place at all. They fit perfectly with the mood at the beginning of the plot. Also, he slipped in some humour and joy into the gloomy dystopia world, such as the hilarious character Kenji Kishimoto. 

And of course, as in every YA book, there were several steamy scenes with Adam! Here’s one of my favorite passages with Adam. (Sorry, it’s not steamy...you’ll have to wait to read those when you get your hands on this book!) The theme of the bird appears often in Shatter Me.

Pinks and reds filter into the room and I know it’s the start of a new beginning. The start of the same end. Another day.

Maybe I will die today.
Maybe a bird will fly today.

“So that’s it? They open the door once a day for people to do their business and maybe if we’re lucky they feed us? That’s it?” The bird will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly. “That’s it.”

“There’s no . . . group therapy?” He almost laughs.

“Until you arrived, I hadn’t spoken a single word in two hundred sixty-four days.” His silence says so much. I can almost reach out and touch the guilt growing on his shoulders.

So much happens in the second half of the book. I really cannot tell you anything without spoiling it! Juliette is such a strong heroine with even more special abilities up her sleeve. Throughout her life, almost everyone has tried to cut her down, saying she is not a human being. She somehow pulls through and tries her best to be a good person, and she really is a kind and caring person. I loved reading about her journey to find herself and can’t wait until the sequel Unravel Me, which was released on February 5th!